Oftelie Leaving OCTA to Head Business Council
Stan Oftelie, the leading force behind a billion dollars in locally funded freeway, road and rail improvements, announced Thursday that he is stepping down as the county’s longtime transportation chief to head the Orange County Business Council.
The announcement, which stunned government leaders and business executives alike, marks the boldest move yet in the business council’s plan to expand upon the power broker role it played in resolving the county’s bankruptcy and become more involved in public policy and economic development issues facing the county.
In Oftelie, the council gains one of the county’s most politically savvy insiders who has served as chief executive of the Orange County Transportation Authority since its formation in 1991, and headed its predecessor agency for a decade before then.
“We are looking for a higher plateau in terms of our involvement in the county,” said Tom Wilck, a member of the council’s board of directors. “Stan is known as someone who can influence and lead. He really understands how this county ticks, and that’s very important to us.”
The council is Orange County’s dominant business association, with members representing 1,500 of the area’s top companies that employ 350,000 people.
Oftelie, 49, is expected to leave his $138,000-a-year OCTA post within the next month. The OCTA’s executive board will meet next week to select an interim chief executive.
Oftelie said it was difficult to leave the agency he helped create but said he could not turn down the challenge of leading the business council into an era of greater public policy involvement.
“Some guys I have a great deal of respect for talked to me about their vision of what the business council’s role should be and whether I could implement that vision,” Oftelie said. “I like the people I work for now and am in no hurry to leave. But this was a new challenge.”
Oftelie worked closely with several top business council members in the hectic months following the county’s December 1994 bankruptcy, as well as during the successful campaign for Measure M, the 1990 half-cent sales tax for transportation that Oftelie championed.
Measure M, the first local tax increase approved by Orange County voters since the Eisenhower era, passed by a slim margin, but it solidified Oftelie’s image among some community activists as a pro-tax “empire builder.”
Oftelie and the business council found themselves on the same side in the divisive debate over Measure R, the failed June 1995 bid to impose a half-cent sales tax to help the county emerge from bankruptcy that voters soundly defeated.
“Stan’s never met a tax he didn’t like, and I’ve never heard of the business council turning down a tax either,” said Bill Ward, founder of Drivers for Highway Safety, a citizens group that keeps tabs on the billion dollars that OCTA is receiving from the Measure M tax.
“I’m concerned whenever you have a group like [the business council] with a lot of money trying to gain a bigger say in what happens to taxpayers’ money,” Ward added.
The Orange County Business Council was formed in 1995 by the merger of three major business development groups--the Industrial League of Orange County, the county Chamber of Commerce and Partnership 2010. The organization has sometimes butted heads with some top Republican officials, who on Thursday questioned the wisdom of having Oftelie, a registered Democrat, lead the business group.
“I think that this is a strong Republican county, and to bring in a Democrat to head the business council, well, I never considered Democrats particularly friendly to business,” said Buck Johns, a director of the Lincoln Club of Orange County, an old-line GOP organization that raises money for Republican political candidates.
But Gary Hunt, executive vice president of the Irvine Co. and a member of the council’s executive board, said Oftelie’s party affiliation should not be an issue, and that his decades of experience in Orange County government will be a major asset to the organization.
“I really expect him to have a wonderful relationship with all of the elected officials in Orange County,” Hunt said. “I can’t see everyone not working together. There’s not just one party [behind] developing a sound business agenda in Orange County. Business is Republican, Democrat, all sorts. It’s to everyone’s best interest that this thing occur.”
“Maybe they want to become more of a political force in the county, and that could be welcome,” Johns said, adding that “if they elect to try to raise more taxes, we’ll probably be bumping heads.”
The county’s bankruptcy marked the business council’s debut on the county political scene, with Hunt and Thomas Sutton, chief executive officer of Pacific Mutual, playing influential roles in heading off a major legal battle between county government and the cities, school districts and other government agencies, including OCTA, that had lost nearly $1 billion in the stunning collapse of the county’s investment pool.
They brokered a settlement agreement under which the cities and schools agreed to accept less than 100% of the money they had deposited in the county-run investment pool, and would join the county in suing the Wall Street firms the county blamed for the pool’s financial collapse.
Council members also lobbied lawmakers in Sacramento for special legislation that allowed the county to divert more than half a billion dollars of tax revenue to repay bankruptcy debts.
“The bankruptcy was our immediate focus, but there are other areas where we can help create an environment where business can develop and expand,” said Todd Nicholson, who is stepping down as the council’s president. “It’s critical that the business council be a major player on those issues.”
Attorney John Erskine, who first met Oftelie in the 1970s, said the appointment should give the business council a stronger voice in its advocacy for a commercial airport at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.
“The airport certainly has to be very high on their list, and can you name a person with a better working relationship with the Board of Supervisors?” Erskine said. “It’s a great choice.”
After Oftelie graduated from Cypress College in 1968, he worked as a reporter for the Orange County Register and The Los Angeles Times, before earning his bachelor’s degree from Arizona State and a postgraduate degrees from USC. He went to work for Supervisor Ralph B. Clark in 1976.
He became executive director of the Orange County Transportation Commission in 1983. When the commission merged with the Orange County Transit District in 1991, Oftelie was named chief executive, a position he maintained when the district was renamed the transportation authority that year.
The agency, with a $602-million annual budget, operates more than 500 buses and directs the county’s master transportation plan for freeways, streets and rail service.
Under Oftelie, the OCTA has embarked on a variety of big-ticket transportation projects, including the construction of carpool lanes, improvements to the El Toro Y and other freeway interchanges and the conversion of several major thoroughfares into “smart streets.”
Two of the biggest OCTA projects are still ahead: a $1-billion widening of the Santa Ana Freeway and possible construction of a light rail system in central Orange County.
Despite the agency’s successes, Oftelie’s tenure also had its rocky times. Oftelie was a political backer of longtime Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron, whose risky investment practices led to the $1.64-billion bankruptcy. And some conservative legislators were furious when Oftelie blocked post-bankruptcy attempts to use money from Measure M to help pay off bankruptcy debts.
Still, those who have worked with Oftelie praise him as an aggressive advocate of transportation services who built an efficient agency.
“Obviously, this is a great opportunity for him and a plus for the business community,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman William G. Steiner. “But one of Stan’s strengths was building a strong management team so that there is strong leadership in place to succeed him.”
Oftelie said he was first contacted about the job in January or February by members of the business council. He decided to accept the job Wednesday night, he said.
Neither the council nor Oftelie would reveal his salary.
Also contributing to this report was staff writer Tina Nguyen and librarian Lois Hooker.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Profile: Stan Oftelie
Age: 49
Hometown: Pasadena
Residence: Anaheim Hills
Salary: $138,000
Personal: Married, four sons
Education: Bachelor’s degree in journalism, Arizona State University; master’s in communications, 1974, and public administration, 1980, USC
Work history: OCTA chief executive officer, 1991-present; executive director, Orange County Transportation Commission, 1983-1991; chief aide to then-Supervisor Ralph B. Clark, 1975-76
Source: Times reports
Researched by TINA NGUYEN / Los Angeles Times
